Stevens hammers, more than once this morning from the bench on the principle that corporations “are not human beings” and “corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires.” He insists that “they are not themselves members of ‘We the People’ by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.”

It’s true, of course, that corporations “are not human beings.” But their owners (the stockholders) and employees are. Human beings organized as corporations shouldn’t have fewer constitutional rights than those organized as sole proprietors, partnerships, and so on. In this context, it’s important to emphasize that most media organizations and political activist groups also use the corporate form. As Eugene Volokh points out, most liberals accept the idea that organizational form is irrelevant when it comes to media corporations, which were exempt from the restrictions on other corporate speech struck down by the Court today. The Supreme Court (including its most liberal justices) has repeatedly recognized that media corporations have First Amendment rights just as broad as those extended to media owned by individuals. Yet the “corporations aren’t people” argument applies just as readily to media corporations as to others. After all, newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations “are not human beings” and they too “have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires.” We readily reject this reasoning in the case of media corporations because we recognize that even though the corporations in question are not people, their owners and employees are. The same point applies to other corporations.

There are various other arguments for treating political speech by people organized as corporations differently from that by people using other organizational forms. I’m not going to try to address them all here. We can discuss them more productively if we first dispense with the weak but popular claim that corporations aren’t entitled to freedom of speech because they aren’t people.

UPDATE: I should mention that it’s irrelevant that the First Amendment specifically protects the freedom of “the press.” It does not specifically mention “press” entities organized as corporations. So if you believe that freedom of speech doesn’t apply to corporations because they “aren’t people,” the same point applies to freedom of the press. As Eugene Volokh explains, “freedom of the press” is not a constitutional right for a particular group of people or organizations. Rather it is a right to engage in a certain class of activities (such as publishing newspapers and pamphlets), whether the person doing so is a professional member of the media or not.

The wrangling between House and Senate Democrats on whether and how to proceed with health reform is politically suicidal and substantively irresponsible. If they fail to act expeditiously to approve the Senate bill and a set of amendments under reconciliation, they will deservedly return to the minority much quicker than they or anyone else anticipated. This is no time for President Obama to go wobbly. There is no scaled-down bill that can work. Republicans have no interest in negotiating a bill, only in continuing a focus on health reform until November. It's time for the President to demonstrate the courage of his convictions and press his Democratic colleagues in the Congress to do the only rational and responsible thing. No more excuses. Either govern or prepare to be pushed aside.

Today's decision is the most radical and destructive campaign finance decision in Supreme Court history. In order to reach the decision, five justices abandoned longstanding judicial principles, judicial precedents and judicial restraint.

With the Citizens United opinion, Chief Justice Roberts has abandoned the illusory public commitments he made to "judicial modesty" and "respect for precedent" to cast the deciding vote for a radical decision that profoundly undermines our democracy.

In a stark choice between the right of American citizens to a government free from "influence-buying" corruption and the economic and political interests of American corporations, five Supreme Court Justices today came down in favor of American corporations.

With a stroke of the pen, five Justices wiped out a century of American history devoted to preventing corporate corruption of our democracy.

The radical nature of today's decision can be seen in the fact that the Court is overruling cases decided in 1990, 2003 and 2007, without any changed circumstances to justify these abrupt reversals.

The only change that has occurred is a change in the makeup of the Court itself and that provides no justification for overturning past decisions.

The Supreme Court decision in Citizens United is wrong for the country, wrong for the constitution and wrong for our democracy. It will not stand the test of time or history.

The Supreme Court majority has acted recklessly to free up corporations to use their immense, aggregate corporate wealth to flood federal elections and buy government influence. The Fortune 100 companies alone had combined revenues of $13 trillion and profits of $605 billion during the last election cycle.

Under today's decision, insurance companies, banks, drug companies, energy companies and the like will be free to each spend $5 million, $10 million or more of corporate funds to elect or defeat a federal candidate - and thereby to buy influence over the candidate's positions on issues of economic importance to the companies.

Today's decision turns back the clock to the nineteenth century, eliminating a national policy to prevent the use of corporate wealth to corrupt government decisions - a policy that has been in existence for more than a century.

Members of Congress have passed and Presidents have signed numerous laws over the years to prevent "influence-buying" corruption of our government. These laws have consistently been upheld by the Supreme Court.

Today, five Justices issued a decision that will empower "influence-buying" corruption.

In the name of the Constitution, five Justices have substituted their pro-corporate policy views for the anti-corruption policy views of the representatives elected by citizens to establish our national policies under our constitutional system of government.

This decision will have a devastating impact on the ability of citizens to believe that their government is acting on their behalf, instead of advancing the interests of the nation's corporations at their expense.

In the coming weeks, Congress should explore all possible legislative options to address the dangerous corruption problems opened up by the Supreme Court today.

The Citizens United decision reinforces the need to dramatically increase the role of citizens in financing our elections with small "non-influence seeking" contributions.

This requires enacting legislation to repair the presidential public financing system and create a new system of congressional public financing, and to make small donors the key players in these systems by providing public funds to match small contributions. Democracy 21 strongly supports such legislation.

Ironically, the constitutionality of the corporate spending ban was never even raised by the plaintiffs in the lower court consideration of this case. Instead, the Justices, in essence, started the case themselves when, on their own, they ordered further briefing and argument on the constitutionality of the corporate spending ban.

Ignoring the longstanding judicial doctrine of constitutional avoidance, the Court majority has reached out to decide Citizens United on broad constitutional grounds rather than on the various narrower grounds that were available. If the Court had made its decision on any of these narrower grounds, it would not have disrupted more than a hundred years of national policy to prevent corporate "influence-buying" corruption.

Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska Republican who retired from the Senate last year after serving two terms, said in an interview that if restrictions on corporate money were lifted, "the lobbyists and operators . . . would run wild." Reversing the law would magnify corporate power in society and "be an astounding blow against good government, responsible government," Hagel said. "We would debase the system, so we would get to the point where we couldn't govern ourselves."

Justice Louis Brandeis, one of the nation's greatest Supreme Court Justices, once said "The most important political office is that of the private citizen." Today's Supreme Court decision rejects Justice Brandeis' view, raising corporations to new heights of importance and influence in our political system.

The big question that Citizens United raises is whether this opinion represents the beginning of the end toward reversing Buckley v. Valeo or whether the Court extending Buckley by strengthening the distinction between expenditures and contributions.

Notwithstanding any caveats, if one takes an aggressive view of the Court's rationale in Citizens United, it is not that much of a stretch to conclude that contribution limitations restrain speech from Citizens United's simplistic understanding of speech. The justification that those limitations prevent corruption can be answered by the argument that strong disclosure is all that is necessary to check corruption. Under that view, Buckley is vulnerable. On the other hand, it could simply be the case that the opinion wants to draw a clean line between campaign finance rules that limit contributions (which are okay) and those that limit independent expenditures (which would not be constitutional). As bad as some may find Citizens United, it might actually be worse.

Somebody very cruel once said that Hubert Humphrey is a man who is twenty years ahead of his time -- but that his time is 1948. That was a damning comment in 1972; it's an even more damning one today, but I'm afraid this describes the mindset of a great many good Democrats.

For these people -- earnest, passionate, often very smart and engaged and many of them good friends of mine -- the 1940s and 1950s model of progress still holds. The world is divided between three groups of people: a large mass of basically good but oppressed and poorly educated working people (and small farmers) who need guidance, enlightenment and protection; evil and greedy corporations and special interests who seek to grind them down and suck them dry; and honest, competent, well educated professionals whose job it is to steer society forward in the interests of the ignorant mass. Unfortunately the evil and greedy interests and their sly minions are good at befuddling and confusing the dumbass masses, using such retrograde themes as patriotism, religion and always and everywhere racism.

For Democrats with this mindset, the party has to balance the interests of the masses and the classes. That is, the masses are, regrettably, too stupid to know what is good for them. It is necessary for the enlightened professionals to steer a middle course between the unreflective populism of the masses and the self-destructive and shortsighted greed of the special interests. These Democrats interpret the populist revolt against the Obama administration (evil "teabaggers" and all) as a sign that the Democrats have steered too far toward the classes, creating a window of vulnerability for evil minion Republican demagogues to confuse the masses about who their real friends are. To hold this in check, the party needs to embrace more 'populist' economic rhetoric: crosses of gold, bankers foreclosing on widows, the whole William Jennings Bryan playbook. Card check, tax the rich, a hugely expensive jobs bill, regulate the hell out of business. This, they are deeply and utterly convinced, will foil the minions completely and let everyone know beyond any doubt who the real friends of the people are.

It is extremely difficult for people steeped in this mindset (as I was for many years) to wrap their heads around the core idea powering American politics in the last generation: a revolt by the 'dumbass masses' against this basic social map of the world. Huge chunks of the masses today don't think they need or want tutors, directors, counselors, union leaders, civil servants or anybody else managing their affairs. They hunger and thirst for social and political autonomy -- it is the liberal world view that they long to be freed of.

For many lower-middle and middle-middle class Americans, the upper-middle class has a basic strategy to protect its privilege and position: to define horrible social problems which require a privileged upper middle class professional establishment to manage. The fight over the role of government in America today is less ideological than class: the middle middle class and its allies think that the upper middle class and its allies use the state as a system to tax other people to defend the privileged class position of professionals, managers and civil servants. More and better funded university professors; more snooty lawyers with more power; more bureaucrats with life tenure and fat pensions; more money thrown down the rat holes of public schools dominated by self-seeking teacher unions.

To people coming from this (increasingly common) perspective, Democrats actually become much more offensive and patronizing when they embrace what they think of as populist economic rhetoric. When 'populist' Democrats try to respond to public dissatisfaction by offering their services as tribunes of the people out to crush evil monster corporations and vicious robber baron plutocrats with big new government programs, they unintentionally confirm popular suspicions that they are using public grievances to strengthen the class that many Americans think is their real enemy.

The war on upper middle class privilege is the cause today that for better or worse embodies the spirit of American populism. Some Democrats get this; most don't and, probably, sadly, won't.

Today's Supreme Court opinion marks a very bad day for American democracy, and one that was totally avoidable: make no mistake: the Supreme Court had ample ways (I count at least six) to have avoided deciding the issues in the case.

The case will affect not just Congress, but also state and local races, including judicial elections. In no elections will corporate or labor union spending limits be constitutional. So what can happen now? There are a few options, but most appear either politically unrealistic, unconstitutional, or both:

1. Reenact narrower corporate spending limits. Some are suggesting that a narrower ban, such as one that targets only wealthy corporations. I don't think that will fly. Unlike many recent opinions from the Supreme Court in recent years, this one is not fractured. You have a united, five-Justice majority saying pretty much per se that spending limits are unconstitutional (except perhaps foreign corporations). There seems little wiggle room in the opinion.

2. Enact new public financing plans. If we worry about corporate dominance of money in the political process, how about trying to subsidize some campaigns through public financing. Today's opinion does not take public financing plans off the table, but an earlier Supreme Court opinion, FEC v. Davis, likely takes the most attractive portion of public financing plans out. Recent plans have had a provision allowing for additional "matching funds" when a candidate faces a wealthy opponent or third party spending. Relying on Davis's rejection of equality rationales for campaign finance regulation, an Arizona Court just struck down Arizona's matching fund component of its system. Without matching funds, candidates won't participate. With them, the plans may be unconstitutional.

3. A constitutional amendment. Are you kidding? A supermajority of Congress and the States to put limits on corporate spending. Not in my lifetime.

4. End the soft money ban. Really? Why do that? Well Congress might consider it because now third party groups, which tend to be more unaccountable and negative than parties will have greater ability to run ads, with parties' hands tied by that part of McCain-Feingold not yet struck down. The parties won't like it. If the ban is lifted, the potential for corruption increases.

5. Better disclosure. By an 8-1 vote, this gets a green light. Disclosure is much better than nothing, but it is not nearly enough to solve the corruption and inequality problems that will plague our system.

6. Change the Supreme Court. If one of the conservative Justices leave the Court, the law could change back in an instant. But that's not anything anyone can plan. Patience may be the best medicine now.

The ink is barely dry on today's Citizens United opinion, and the hysteria has already begun. Set aside the misunderstandings we're seeing in some of the comments here at the Arena -- corporations still cannot, for example, contribute directly to campaigns -- even some of those who understand the law and this decision would have us believe that the world as we know it is coming to an end. Thus, the inimitable Rick Hasen, whose knowledge of these issues is second to none, tells us that "today's Supreme Court opinion marks a very bad day for American democracy." And attorneys at NYU's Brennan Center, which made its reputation promoting campaign finance "reform," head up their post with this: "After the Flood: How to Save Democracy Post Citizens United." One imagines the Dark Ages just beyond the gloaming.

Over on the Hill, meanwhile, Senator Russ Feingold, who's having a bad day in what must for him be a bad week, promises darkly, “In the coming weeks, I will work with my colleagues to pass legislation restoring as many of the critical restraints on corporate control of our elections as possible.”

Relax. Half of our states, states like Virginia, have minimal campaign finance laws, and there's no more corruption in those states than in states that strictly regulate. And that's because the real reason we have this campaign finance law is not, and never has been, to prevent corruption. The dirty little secret -- the real impetus for this law -- in incumbency protection. How else to explain the so-called Millionaire's Amendment, which the Court struck down in 2008. That little gem in the McCain-Feingold "reform" package exempted candidates (read: incumbents) from the law's strictures if they were running against a self-financed "millionaire," who could not be prohibited from spending his own money campaigning. Thus, the nominal rationale for the incomprehensible edifice we call "campaign finance law" -- to prohibit corruption -- suddenly disappeared if you were running against a millionaire. Well, the Court, fortunately, saw right through that. And a majority on the Court saw the light in today's decision, too. The First Amendment is not a "loophole." It's the very foundation of our democracy, and we are the stronger today for this decision.

Allan MeltzerProfessor of Political Economy and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon :

Campaign finance

Hooray for the opinion. McCain Finegold is bad law that weakens the parties where compromises once were made and strengthens the interest groups at the expense of the parties and the public. Compromise in the Congress has become less likely since McCain Feingold became law. Obama avoided the restrictions by not accepting public money.

What will be the practical effect of the Citizens United ruling on the 2010 campaign cycle?

It’s a landmark ruling, one of the most significant of the last generation. The court has been chipping away at campaign finance regulation for the past several years, but this is furthest they’ve gone.

The majority of the court has struck down corporate expenditures. The court, staring from the 1970s on, had made clear that individuals had a right to make expenditures. Political parties have been afforded the right. So have certain non-profit organizations. The outlier was for-profit organizations and unions. That tension in the law has been rectified.

This ruling has to have a major effect on the midterm elections. Labor unions will now be able to spend unlimited funds on advertising. The $64,000 question is what corporations and trade associations do. Many companies historically have been skittish to be involved in partisan politics. It’s hard to predict how much corporate funding will flow. Trade associations, they’re advocacy organizations by nature. They represent companies in Washington. This ruling has given them a green light to spend whatever money they can amass on political advertising.

What restrictions on political donations did the ruling leave in place?

This ruling does not affect corporate contributions. You’ve still got to set up a PAC to do that. You can’t just open your corporate treasury funds. Also, advertising must still be done independently of candidates. Justice Kennedy’s opinion did preserve this historic distinction between contributions, which can be limited, and expenditures, which cannot be.

Under the ruling, though, corporations and unions can now say, “Vote for this candidate” or “Vote against candidate X,” “So-and-so’s an idiot,” or “So and so’s a great guy.” And they can say that any time, with no limitations 30 or 60 days before an election.

The McCain-Feingold’s advertising restrictions have been gutted. In the McConnell vs. FEC 2003 ruling the Supreme Court upheld the main pillars of the campaign finance law. But the advertising law has been ended; the restrictions on the funding have been struck down.

Since the Supreme Court in 2003 largely upheld the campaign finance law three new members have joined the bench, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor. What’s the most tangible difference from their presence?

We’re seeing in stark relief the effect of Justice Alito’s arrival on the Supreme Court in 2006. Since then we’ve had a series of 5-4 rulings chipping away at campaign finance restrictions. I believe Justice Alito has carved out a real reputation as a fierce defender of free speech.

Americans have reason to fear too-big business almost (but not quite) as much as too-big government, but restrictions on corporate political speech have always had a certain absurdity about them. Corporations, like unions and other interest groups, are merely collection of citizens with views usually driven by their economic interests.

Still, I was almost comfortable with the restrictions in place; that is, until Nike v. Kasky in 2003. Although the Court's 1978 decision in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti confirmed that corporations have political speech rights (in that case, on public referenda), and Nike v. Kasky effectively affirmed some corporate speech rights, the case nonetheless reminded me of how close the Bellotti decision had been (5-4), and how frequently the Court seemed to have to step in to prevent anti-capitalism forces from abusing, and perhaps eventually extending, what otherwise might be acceptable limits.

With its decision in Citizens United, the Court has now removed at least one level of inconsistency in our nation's political speech protections, the risk of future impairments, and the pretense that similar advocacy was somehow not occurring through corporate and union PACs.

In today's dissent, Justice Stevens has this (among many other things, each more damning than the last) to say about the Court's conservative majority: "The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution."

As Stevens is surely aware, he is echoing Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, who once declared that the Court, over the course of its history, had "suffered severely from self-inflicted wounds." The Citizens United decision -- with its incoherence, its grasping at constitutional issues that did not need to be decided, and its contempt for the legislative branch -- belongs in that category. But it's far from clear that the Court will lose ground in terms of public esteem. The five men in the majority will take a beating at the hands of liberal commentators during the next news cycle or two, but they will almost certainly emerge unchastened, and their institution unscathed.

If Bush v. Gore taught us anything, it is that the Court rarely pays a price for its brazenness. The majority has to go pretty far indeed before most Americans feel it has transgressed.

In his excellent new book, The Will of the People, Professor Barry Friedman of NYU Law School shows that the Court has a powerful instinct for self-preservation. Historically, the Court tends to shrink from controversy and, over time, to align itself with established public opinion. This happened most dramatically in 1937, when -- in the wake of FDR's landslide re-election and in the face of his threat to pack the Court -- the Court suddenly stopped striking down New Deal programs. But this followed a two-year period in which the justices were deciding the most fundamental and most urgent questions of state and national policy -- two years in which the Court's obstructionism became the focus of widespread condemnation. It took an awful lot of heat and pressure before the swing man on the Court, Justice Owen Roberts, finally yielded.

Nothing like that is going to come of the case decided today. The damage from Citizens United will indeed be severe, but the other two branches -- and the American people -- will suffer the brunt of it.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs commented about the Massachusetts Senate race yesterday, "the candidate that won last night has said it wasn't just one issue. The anger and the frustration that the American people have at the fact that a lot of work has been done and they don't necessarily feel like their economic lives have progressed in the past year is understandable. As I said yesterday, that's what brought candidate Barack Obama a year ago today to be inaugurated as President Obama."
The attempt to link Senator -elect Brown's win Tuesday to President Obama's win in 2008 does not work. It's as if they are living in parallel worlds that never intersect with ours. It actually increases the psychological space between the American people and the president.

President Obama attempted the same link last night when he said, "The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office."
He then continues to blame the Bush administration, "People are angry, and they're frustrated. Not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years, but what's happened over the last eight years."

The American people are over the blame game - Obama should take responsibility.

Obama then details what he should have done, "And, you know, If there's one thing that I regret this year, is that we were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us, that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values."

Obama does not need to speak more to the American People - he needs to begin to listen.

Many Americans might be glad to hear their president say, "I feel your pain," at least they would know he was listening.

I don’t know if it is a reasonable expectation for us to figure out whether President Obama and the Democrats “got” the results of Tuesday’s election yet. It’s too early, and talk is cheap. The real test is how they modify their behavior as a result of Tuesday’s loss. For me to be convinced that they understand the Tuesday’s message and all of its implications, I will need to see major structural and messaging changes.

First and foremost, I need to see the Democrats recommit to retail politicking. I think the Democrats understand the value of face-to-face canvassing in close contests in swing states, but that message has not translated well to solid blue states with supposedly strong political machines. The lesson of Tuesday is that candidates have to have robust field operations, no matter where they live or the size of their party registration advantage. And let me be clear about this: robust field operations are canvassing and personal phone bank operations. They do not include robo calls and rallies, even if you can convince the president to stump for you. And Democrats should not assume that sympathetic third party groups can marshal all or most of the human capital needed to undertake an effective personal mobilization campaign. If candidates and the parties that support them do not assume the responsibility for ensuring that they have enough people to effectively convey their message where voters live, then they put themselves at greater risk for failure.

The other big takeaway lesson for this is that the Democrats need to consider President Obama’s limits as they think about how to employ him as a surrogate this fall. Obama organized an impressive organization in 2008 to get himself elected. In hindsight, this organization did not translate into party building, nor has it translated into coattails for subsequent elections. This suggests one thing to me: Democrats need to acknowledge that the voters who were “mobilized” to elect Barack Obama were drawn to his charismatic personality and the chance to participate in an historic election. They weren’t drawn to any movement, nor to the party. As such, these voters have to be re-engaged along substantive lines. If Democrats don’t concede that their 2008 “social movement” was really a cult of personality (as happy as some of us were with the outcome), then I’m going to have to call them tone deaf.

This reengagement necessitates a reevaluation of Democrats’ messaging strategy. Once again, the GOP has done a masterful job of defining Democrats before they can define themselves. Now, if the op-eds are any indication, Democrats have to contend with the scarlet letter of being elitist know-it-alls who are insensitive to the queries and clamor of the masses who value common sense and don’t want to be treated like they’re imbeciles. And now that the Supreme Court is allowing unlimited corporate political advocacy throughout the election cycle, Democrats are really going to have to get a handle on their own self-definition.

In this environment, President Obama is going to have to remake himself in ways that he probably did not anticipate a year ago. I think Democrats in general thought that Obama’s natural thoughtfulness would be a welcome contrast to George W. Bush’s brash impetuousness, and that voters would value a cerebral president. However, Obama’s pensiveness and failure to define healthcare at the outset of this debate gave Republicans a foothold to win the populist argument and now Ted Kennedy’s seat. Moreover, it made him look indecisive, and it undermined his authority.

So what do President Obama and the Democrats do now? President Obama needs to present a clear vision and action plan for the rest of his modified agenda. As he defines his goals, he needs to explain them clearly to voters so that they feel they understand the goal, why it’s important, and how he plans on paying for that goal. He needs to champion an issue that benefits voters directly and quickly. Thus, while I think it’s important for Obama to decry Wall St. excesses and push for banking reform, Main Street will cheer more loudly when they see everyday people working again.

As far as the Republicans are concerned, they put the Democrats on notice that they can harness new media to advance the candidacies of likeable candidates with crossover appeal and strong messaging. As a proponent of robust two-party competition, I think that this is a good thing. However, I would caution Republicans to not rest on their laurels. Scott Brown won because he was the right man with the right message at the right time. If the Republicans had put up a more extreme candidate, this could have been NY-23 all over again. What voters, particularly independent voters, are likely saying is that they want common sense, pragmatic leaders who eschew extremist sound bites and engage in common sense problem-solving to attack our most pressing issues. It may be well for Republicans to ride the wave of angst against Obama’s unpopular policy initiatives now, but if they don’t offer effective alternatives, then they too could experience a backlash.

By Mimi Marziani and Monica Youn, Attorneys with the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law

Awaiting the Citizens United decision was like anticipating impact from a massive tsunami – good government advocates have been dreading the Armageddon of campaign finance reform for months. on Thursday, the day of reckoning finally dawned, and the court -- after declaring that "the First Amendment does not allow political speech restrictions based on a speaker's corporate identity" -- overruled longstanding federal law banning corporations from using general treasury funds to engage in election-related spending.

In short, the Supreme Court annihilated critical constraints on corporate political spending, leaving the voices of individuals citizens to drown in corporate cash. Although it remains to be seen whether corporate money will flow into our electoral process like a trickling stream or whitewater rapids, there is no doubt that the landscape of political fund raising has been changed.

In this brave new world, Congress will be looking at various ways to protect America’s newly-vulnerable democracy. Raising campaign contribution limits, strengthening disclosure requirements, empowering corporate boards and shareholders, and amending the Constitution are just some of the possibilities that will be discussed. While there are good reasons to support a few of those measures, none offers a comprehensive antidote to the increasing influence of corporate dollars in American elections. As the waters calm in a post-Citizens United era, it is increasingly clear that public financing of political campaigns is the one true solution.

Although the details of effective public financing systems may vary, certain components are key. To start, participation must be voluntary; otherwise, such a program could be vulnerable to constitutional challenge. Next, to ensure that taxpayer money is spent responsibly, candidates must demonstrate seriousness of purpose and adequate public support before qualifying for funds. Thirdly, once a candidate accepts public monies, he or she must comply with spending limits and agree to provide a complete accounting of campaign expenditures. Finally, to be successful, participating candidates must receive sufficient resources to reach voters with their message.

Unlike other possible fixes, public financing programs offer a demand-side, rather than a supply-side, solution. Currently, the skyrocketing costs of campaigns drive candidates to seek the support – either direct or indirect – of big-money backers. Rather than trying to restrict the supply of potentially-corrupting money in politics by banning or limiting contributions and expenditures, public financing makes it possible for candidates to run a viable, competitive campaign through grassroots outreach alone.

Public financing systems do not seek to muzzle corporate voices. Instead – as the Supreme Court put it – public funding programs “facilitate and enlarge public discussion and participation in the electoral process,” thus furthering First Amendment values for all. In the words of one advocate, public financing programs are “the ‘more speech’ solution to the problem of free speech in campaign finance reform.”

With the 2010 elections looming, we must act now to protect our democracy from commercialization. The Fair Elections Now Act ("FENA"), a bill that would create a public financing system for federal congressional elections, is a terrific first response. We can no longer afford to let it languish in the House of Representatives – FENA must move to the forefront of the legislative agenda today.

1. Seeing as how some Democrats are willing to admit that they need to scale back their agenda in the aftermath of the vote in Massachusetts, it is safe to say that some of them get it. Others do not, and while they may pay lip service to the outcome of the special election, they give no indication of actually respecting that outcome, and adjusting their political goals accordingly. As for the Republicans, there is nothing to "get." The party is still in the minority, which means that it cannot overreach, even if it wanted to.

2. Taxing banks and instituting bank curbs may be smart politics. Then again, it may not be; one of the more notable aspects of the 2008 Presidential race was the fact that Wall Street was willing to donate to Democrats. Of course, this was in large part because Wall Street sensed that Democrats were in the ascendancy, politically, but even so, the trend was noteworthy. Given the Administration's renewed interest in playing class warfare games, however, that interest on the part of Wall Street may well dissipate--indeed, I would not be surprised if it did. The Administration's class warfare games are certainly bad policy; all that will happen is that talented workers in the financial services industry will go to work for foreign firms, where the Administration's populist outrage is significantly less influential. The overregulation planned by the Administration will only serve to curb and limit economic activity that could lead to a financial recovery. The taxes planned by the Administration--some of them falling on firms and banks that took not a cent of TARP money, or have paid it back, with interest--simply makes no sense, and appears to have been crafted almost completely out of spite.

For most of U.S. history commercial speech was held to have zero First Amendment protection. Right along with pornography and fighting words it's contribution to the political life of the country was considered negligible. With this morning's Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission we have turned 180 degrees. Political contributions by corporations can no longer be barred or severely limited. The fear of corruption or corporate dominance was held insufficient to ban the flow of corporate money. "Government may not suppress political speech based on the speaker's corporate identity", Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for a 5-4 court majority.

The decision resumes the anti regulation attitude of the court begun in the early 1970s with the Buckley and Bellotti cases and interrupted only briefly by the Austin decision which held that legitimate public concern for the fairness of the electoral process was a sufficiently compelling public interest to justify narrowly tailored restrictive legislation.

Somehow or other, the new majority became convinced rather quickly that the Austin standard didn't work. And in effect the court held that the restrictions to date have done little to check campaign expenditures, drive candidates in important elections to rely solely on federal funding, or limit the mass of contributions of those with very deep pockets and very strong political opinions.

Now all restrictions are off. In effect the court held that the flood gates have been open all along restricting only the small handful of political donors who are concerned about the appearance of respect for the law as well as technical compliance with that law. The decision comes at the very moment in which the Obama administration appears to be ready to shift fronts in his political battles from healthcare to a new populist strategy of tackling both the size and power of big banks as well as their maintenance of risky investment portfolios. The banks will likely fight back not only with legal challenges to any serious government involvement but also on the political front with direct contributions to the campaigns of political "friends".

I repeat, we are entering an era which could hardly have been envisioned only a few decades ago and which was totally alien to our early constitutional assumptions. But in a more real sense the court has merely brought the law into congruence with open practice.

It’s official. The Supreme Court under chief Justice Roberts has now entered Bizarro World, that fantastical comic book land where hello means goodbye, down is up, and free speech is “a message brought to you by the friends and corporate members of Halliburton.” This decision stinks to high heaven.

It is quite reassuring to see that the Supreme Court is dedicated to the principle of free speech, even if some in Congress are not. There was never any reason whatsoever to treat corporate speech differently from individual speech, of course. While the way the Justices lined up on the case was somewhat confusing, it is fair to say that there was something significant about the limits on corporate speech that most of the Justices simply did not like, given the state of First Amendment law. This fact ought to be noted by Congress, in any effort to craft legislation to curb the impact of the Court's opinion. To the extent that the Congressional majority disregards the Court's defense of a robust First Amendment, Republicans in the Senate--aided by the arrival of Senator-elect Scott Brown--ought to filibuster any effort to renew or revive limits on speech. And hopefully, John McCain--who sought to author much of the unjustified limits on political speech--will either see the light, or feel the heat, and join Republicans in resisting efforts to scale back the extent of the Court's defense of the First Amendment.

As First Amendment jurisprudence goes, this is almost certainly correct -- it's not just "persons" whose speech that Congress is forbidden from restricting. Still, that doesn't mean that this might not end up with absolutely lousy results for our democracy, given the potential for amassed corporate wealth to distort political discourse. The majority puts a lot of faith in the people to sort things out, but there's still a role for Congress to play in leveling the playing field through instituting voluntary public financing of public elections, and perhaps through targeted corporate governance provisions to ensure that shareholders have a say in where their money is going.

What the Democrats really need to notice is what's happening with independents and young voters. Independents swung strongly from Obama to Republican candidates in Virginia, New Jersey, and now Massachusetts. That's the center of the electorate -- they wanted the Republicans out in 2006 and 2008, but we're learning that they didn't want the sweeping statist agenda that Obama is pushing. As for young voters, the Politico/Insider Advantage poll showed Brown leading among voters under 30 by a 61%-30% margin. In contrast, the 2008 exit poll showed 18-29-year-olds in Massachusetts voting for Obama by a 78%-20% margin. That's got to be a huge relief for Republicans, though they should note that Brown stressed economic issues, not the social issues that have driven young voters away from Republicans, and he was in any case a moderate on social issues.

In a new study that David Kirby I released today we argue that many of these independent, "centrist" voters are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Or, in a word, libertarian. We wrote in the study, “Libertarians seem to be a lead indicator of trends in centrist, independent-minded voters. If libertarians continue to lead the independents away from Obama, Democrats will lose 2010 midterm elections they would otherwise win.”

Libertarian-leaning voters, by our fairly strict criteria, are 14 percent of the electorate, and we demonstrate that they have been much more of a swing vote in the past decade than most identifiable groups. The Republicans drove them away in the Bush years, and now the Democrats are doing the same thing.

Citizens United has ended with a bang, not a whimper – with the Court overruling two of its own decisions, angry dissents, defensive claims about the moral high ground, and some quite pointed barbs directed at fellow Justices and the Solicitor General. As a practical matter, the opinion is just one more step in the direction the Court was already heading. Earlier cases had already substantially limited Congress’s power to restrict independent corporate expenditures, and all Citizens United did was take the final step. As a symbolic matter, however, overruling Austin – the darling of reformers – will send shockwaves through the reform community.

In my view, the real significance of the case lies in what the Court said Congress can do going forward. The Court severely limited both the arguments and the types of evidence Congress can invoke when it regulates in the future. In doing so, it overruled other precedent without saying so. Austin, it seems to me, was a goner anyway. The real hope for future campaign-finance reform turned not on Austin¸ but on what constitutes corruption and what evidence Congress can gather to show it exists. The Court has now cut back substantially on both fronts. While that part of the opinion won’t get nearly as much press, it’s the part of the opinion that will matter most in the future.

Today's decision from the Supreme Court is an extreme example of judicial overreach that arbitrarily overturns decades of precedent and undercuts the powers of the legislative branch. What the Supreme Court majority did today was empower corporations to use their enormous wealth and urge the election or defeat of federal candidates, and in doing so, buy even more power over the legislative process and government decision making. As a result of this decision, for profit corporations and industries will be able to threaten members of Congress with negative ads if they vote against corporate interests, and to spend tens of millions on campaign ads to "punish" those who do not knuckle under to their lobbying threats.

More than a century's worth of federal and state policy restricting corporate campaign activity in federal elections has been undermined by the Court today, to say nothing of the longstanding precedent upholding those laws against myriad challenges. Most irresponsibly, the narrow Court majority chose to take this radical step without even the benefit of a record from the lower courts, and in a case where there were several opportunities to decide the issues without over-turning Acts of Congress. This case has all the hallmarks of the very judicial activism that conservatives usually criticize. Lacking an even vaguely authoritative set of facts in the case, the Court chose to act not upon relevant facts in a fully developed record, but rather based on its gut instinct in a gesture of disturbing condescension toward Congress and the American people. In this case five Justices have decided to assume the role of legislators, and to actively reach out to decide matters better left to the expertise of Congress.

President Obama is the most professorial president this country has had since Woodrow Wilson. Like Wilson, Obama is a great talker who gives wonderful set speeches. Like Wilson, Obama has a sense of ideological mission and zeal. In Wilson’s case, his ideological zeal was in pursuing U.S. membership in the League of Nations and in Obama’s case it is in pursuing socialized medicine. In both cases, professorial zeal led to catastrophic failure.

Obama now presides over a severe economic downturn on which he is being advised by former Professor Larry Summers, the failed president of Harvard University. His administration is full of former professors and people who have worked in government or in the non-profit sector, but it lacks businessmen who have actually created jobs and new wealth. The voters who elected Scott Brown to the Senate on Tuesday are fed up with this out of touch elite that is running our government. That is the message of Tuesday’s election. Former professors like Woodrow Wilson and Barack Obama do not make good presidents. They are all talk, talk, talk. Now it is time for Obama to listen to the people who elected Scott Brown.

Some Democrats get it and some clearly still don't. Feinstein once again distinguishes herself as one of the most thoughtful Democrats in Congress when she put her finger one thing voters really don't like about the health care bill: its cost estimate, which they also understand to be as dishonestly low as it is symbolic of the recession-blind Democratic agenda. Landrieu is hardly Feinstein's equal, but she knows "too much government," in her words, when her constituents point it out to her. By contrast, Sherrod Brown thinks this is all just a problem of message and timing, perhaps as in "we failed to ram it through before anyone figured out what was in it."

Unfortunately, I worry that congressional Republicans will cling to nonconstructive opposition even after it passes its shelf life. I'd say that life is only another four or five months unless the Democrats do something else really dumb, like try to shove through the Senate bill, pass cap-and-trade or, worst of all, have EPA issue an NPRM on greenhouse gas regulation. The latter would be an act of hubris exceeding even the House's health care overreach, and could prove almost as costly. I don't think that will happen. Instead, I sense a certain vengeful shrewdness brewing in the White House, of which Wall Street bashing will be a very big part. But unlike 2009 the object of this neo-populist campaign will not be legislation, but rather the 2010 elections and a momentum recovery for 2011.

While congressional Democrats will be asked to stay quiet, Obama will loudly pitch even more new taxes and fees on big banks, and even more aggressive (but relatively unspecified) regulation of those banks. This will coincide with a much harder task, especially for Democrats: a huge new jobs initiative directed toward private sector employment rather than state and local governments, toward reviving smaller businesses while bashing big ones, and toward mitigating the next wave of foreclosures through aggressive actions towards the banks holding the loans but without spending too much money. All this will occur while health care, energy and greenhouse gas regulation, the Wall Street regulation, etc., will continue on a much-reduced scale and much lower profile.

Even though I think this strategy could be effective, it is an incredible gamble in terms of timing. Obama has to bet that he can craft a new constructive populist image to cover the bad one now in place. He then has to build upon that image in the absence of any actual legislation equal to his rhetoric, especially from a gunshy and campaign-preoccupied Congress. Finally, he has to bet that the GOP will rise to the bait and become a lot more noticeable to the public than they have been in 2009, and so become at least as exposed a target as he has been (the 'Party of No' pitch is still too potentially effective to discard).

Republicans should be very wary. Democrats might be shaken, but they can't possibly remain as inept as they have in the past year.

With regard to Citizens United: I doubt that the Congress will go back to the drawing board in time for the 2010 midterm elections with regard to campaign finance. So, at least for 2010, it appears that the corporate floodgates are open for contributing from their general funds to pay for their own ads in election cycles. Although direct contributions to candidates from unions and corporations remains taboo, the fact that corporations and unions can spend untold sums for their own advocacy is mischief in the making. Now corporations and unions will be able to “campaign” straight through election day without restriction either in timing or amount.

The Supreme Court ruling has no affect on PACs which represent individual contributions bundled by corporations and unions and corporations and unions will still be prevented from coordination of their advocacy with any campaign or political party.

This ruling will have a tremendous impact on the 2010 midterm elections.

Amitai EtzioniUniversity Professor and Professor of International Affairs, GW University :

The Supreme Court has knocked down several of the few remaining barriers that somewhat slow down the flood of legal bribes with which interest groups overwhelm the members of Congress. The best antidote would be for Congress to enact new limitations on campaign contributions that take into account the Supreme Court’s objections, but that is like asking to wolf to fix the holes in the fence surrounding the chicken coop.

Congress will not act until the public demands reforms, and the public—I am sad to report—does not see the issue. Above all, the public does not buy the need for public financing of elections, the only true way out of the current mess.

The best way to show that public financing is a tremendous bargain is to show how much the public would save if Congress were not dominated by private interests. Take just one example, courtesy of Fred Fiske’s commentary on NPR.

Fiske shows that the drug manufacturers increased the costs of the health care bill before Congress by $139 billion by including a ban on Americans purchasing drugs from Canada. Public financing of a presidential election cycle, even if there were no free time on TV and other cost reduction measures, would cost say $3 billion! Thus preventing ONE of the scores and scores of private interests’ raids on the public treasury would pay for elections for a good part of this century!

By the way, note how attractive we are making this form of draining the public purpose—by Congress being bought so easily. The drug companies spend only about $100 million to get the $139 billion benefit. More generally, K Street advertises that it gets $100 of benefits for every dollar given it to lobby with. It is a figure verified by Jeffrey Birnbaum, a Washington Post reporter, in his book The Money Men (2000).
Worse, the votes of members of many state assemblies can be purchased even more cheaply.
Still, we shall get only the best government money can buy, favoring those most able to pay, until the public puts campaign reform near the top of the list of reforms we demand.

First, the White House has thankfully acknowledged that mistakes have been made in the past year. But what were those mistakes? What the White House seemed not to realize is that many voters were at first confused, then annoyed, then outright angry at the push for healthcare while they were trying to keep a roof over their heads and find a job. It isn't that healthcare isn't important and that most Americans don't recognize that. But the sequencing was off. Having provided a huge bailout to the banks, many Americans were still waiting on their bailout. What they got from Washington was healthcare reform. And they got ugly townhall meetings all summer, which made it seem as though Obama's election had not ushered in a new way a doing things. Instead, the climate and rhetoric seemed as ugly and counterproductive as ever. President Obama's popularity suffered among Independents largely because many of them really believed (naively perhaps) that his election would "change" the way things were done in Washington. Instead they got more -- a lot more - of the same.

Moreover, healthcare was left in the hands of Congress during that period, with no clear, compelling voice explaining why our country was tearing itself apart for a complicated and rumor-riddled health care bill. Swing voters don't trust the Democrats. They trust President Obama. Had the President given a national address last April in which he launched his idea for healthcare reform, and described it as part of the "bailout" for average Americans, perhaps there would have been greater "buy-in." But the President's speech explaining why we needed healthcare didn't come until the end of the summer. By then, townhalls, foreclosures and job losses had created a toxic climate and many voters even in the Democratic base tuned out.

Secondly, what the White House should take away from the election of Scott Brown to fill the unexpired term of Sen. Ted Kennedy,is a simple bromide: "live by the sword, die by the sword." In 2008 candidate Obama awakened and energized independent voters and encouraged those same voters to be unafraid to make non-traditional choices to "shake up things" in Washington. In Pennsylvania, and Virginia and Florida in 2008, those voters put their support behind a black Democrat with an African name. The result was the historic nomination of the nation's first black president.

But Obama Independents (like 'Reagan Democrats') are and will remain a troublesome voting bloc for Democrats and Republicans. Having made the unusual step of supporting Obama, they feel empowered to make other unusual choices -- like selecting a Republican to hold the seat long-held by liberal Sen. Ted. Kennedy. (Those same voters may well feel empowered to toss Scott Brown out of office in two years, if they find themselves disatisfied by his performance. Given the low turnout among solid Democratic voters (African American voters, for example), and the likelihood of considerably higher turnout two years from now when Coakley may well challenge Brown the seat, Brown has got the difficult task before him of figuring how far to tack right in a state that remains overwhelmingly Democratic).

The Administration has its work cut out for it. But President Obama is still very popular, and most importantly remains perhaps the most trusted politician among a majority of voters. The Republicans still don't have a platform of affirmative solutions to offer. President Obama has got to forcefully "make the case" to the American people, before he introduces his new initiatives, not after the climate has been poisoned by congressional in-fighting. Right now, if it's not about the economy and national security, he'll have an uphill battle holding the attention and support of swing voters. So climate change, energy reform, education reform and even immigration, would best be advanced as being tightly connected with those two concerns.

It’s probably also worth noting that, although the decision formally applies to independent expenditures by labor unions as well as corporations, according to the Court in other decisions the First Amendment requires that labor unions give individual members an opportunity to bar the union from using some portion of their dues on political expenditures to which they object. Objecting shareholders have no parallel First Amendment right, on the theory that they can simply sell their shares if they don’t like what the corporation is doing.

Perhaps – though I think it unlikely – the decision will revive interest in proposals made by my colleague Victor Brudney, a specialist in corporate law, to treat the question of corporate expenditures for political campaigns as a matter of corporation law. There are many possible variants of Brudney’s proposals, but each would require shareholder approval of spending in political campaigns. The approval might be general and in advance and by majority vote, or specific for each expenditure with a required supermajority vote. Corporations like Citizen United wouldn’t have any difficulty gaining shareholder approval. But, depending on how the proposal is structured, corporations like Mobil Oil might. Treating the question as one of corporate law would also allow legislatures to distinguish among types of corporations, something that bothered Justice Kennedy about McCain-Feingold.

In the old paradigm, this ruling would give the recipients of corporate largesse a decided advantage. But as we saw in last year's presidential election - and again this month in Senator-Elect Brown's victory - the Internet has proven to be a very effective and low-cost way both for a candidate to raise money and to get his message out. Supporters of past campaign finance reform efforts will no doubt be disappointed, but it's important to remember that the advent of the Internet over the past two cycles means this ruling will have less impact than it would have if it had been issued 10 years ago.

Some get it, some don’t. But if Republicans want some cheer and Democrats want a sobering analysis that might encourage them to ‘get it’, then please check out today’s Crystal Ball at http://bit.ly/SenateRatings. In the wake of Scott Brown’s victory, as well as fresh polls and insider soundings around the country, the U.Va. Center for Politics estimates that, if the election were held today, Republicans would gain an additional 7 Senate seats, bringing the Democrats from their current 59 down to 52.

The good news for Democrats is that the election isn’t today, and there’s time (barely) for some substantial mid-course corrections before November 2nd.

The good news for Republicans is that they can potentially expand the playing field further by securing strong challengers in states like Indiana, Washington, and Wisconsin.

Larry, do you think President Obama gets it? In an interview yesterday with George Stephanopolous, the President blamed the Massachusetts debacle on … George W. Bush: “The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office. People are angry, and they're frustrated. Not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years, but what's happened over the last eight years.” Massachusetts voters were “angry” and “frustrated” with President Bush so they elected a tax-cutting, tough-on-terrorists Republican to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat? I guess I don’t get it.

Big Money is back. (Did it ever leave?) Ironic that the popular mood is anti Big Anything, yet the US Supreme Court brings back Big Money in political campaigns. Now corporate entities left rihgt and center can spend millions of dollars convincing voters that their candidates are men and women of the people. Question: will McCain and Feingold, whose law was upended and whose jobs are up this fall, will honor the limits they wanted or will take advantage of the new cash bonanza?

The administration is still trying to figure out what exactly the message was, since a close look at the voters in MA reveals that it is not so clear what was moving them toward Brown. But the Democrats are clearly aware that they need to devote more attention to the economic recovery and middle class security. Unless they do that they won’t be able to counteract local political pressure that might push voters toward a Republican candidate. They are also even more sensitive to the threat posed by the midterms. If falling from 60 to 59 in the Senate is this devastating, they can only imagine what a more significant drop in the majority would produce.

We now have the worst of all worlds. Corporations may spend soft money against candidates and political parties are still prohibited from raising soft money to counteract these attacks...exactly what I predicted years ago when I was one of the few Congressmen who raised serious objections to the McCain Feingold campaign reform bill.

Do the Democrats get it? A good many of them, like so much of the mainstream media, have long taken their cue from The New York Times editorial page. This morning the Great Gray Lady sallies forth, ideological blinders in place, to pronounce that, "To our minds, [Tuesday's result] is not remotely a verdict on Mr. Obama’s presidency, nor does it amount to a national referendum on health care reform." Not remotely? Those Democratic officeholders who continue to sip from that purblind well will soon have plenty of time to do so.

But Republican performance in recent years has hardly inspired. To their credit, however, Republicans tend to subscribe to principles about government that are closer to the nation's founding principles -- if only they would abide by them. And so one hopes that, after Tuesday, they will come better to "get it."

There are a few obvious consequences of the Massachusetts election:
1. The President no longer has a filibuster-proof Senate so the Democrats will have to pick off at least one Republican to get a bill passed in that chamber.
2. Many Congressmen and Senators are worried that they are at risk of losing to a Tea Party-type candidate.
3. The Democratic leadership will have to forge a bipartisan consensus to pass major legislation.
4. President Obama's charisma doesn't transfer to other candidates for office (cf. Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts).

Everything else is speculation.

Has President Obama lost his lustre? The polls suggest so.

For sure, he overpromised, especially with his presentation of himself as "the change we have all been waiting for," an almost messianic figure who would transform politics, that transcendent figure who would bring sweeping change and solve all problems by the power of his personality.

Are the Republicans on the rise? Well, yes, but only by default, since they still have no message and no leader. It was not surprising that no national party leader came to Massachusetts, because if he or she had, it would have only hurt Scott Brown. The Republicans are gaining only because the Democrats are losing.

What does this mean for the public? Perhaps a healthy dose of realism and a bucket of cold water on our latent utopianism. Our problems will not be solved by charisma or by ramming legislation through with a temporary majority. Health care is important but it is not as important as the economy. To the extent that they can agree, our leaders should focus on creating jobs and saving people's homes.

It remains to be seen it they do truly get it this time. Clinton after the disastrous midterms in ‘94 said the very same things Obama parroted yesterday. Clinton/Obama said things like, “we heard the People”, and “I understand their anger and frustration”, etc. The President’s actions in the coming days will speak louder than his words. Will he ram through health care? Will he continue to ignore the economy and job creation? Will he lead?

Do they get it? Good question for both parties. More important question for the White House. Since the start (particularly on foreign policy and national security) I have always felt like the President has had a hard time switching from campaigning to governing. The irony is that has cost the White House credibility. Switching from a political strategy to a presidential one would help the White House, but as the politics continue to get bad will the administration continue to play politics and make things worse?

If President Obama or any Democrats in Congress think that the Republicans would now be delighted to work with them to pass a stripped down, consensus, health reform bill, they clearly, absolutely, "don't get it." They must be crazy. If Congressional Democrats went to the Republicans crawling on their knees today and said we would like to pass the bill the House Republicans offered in the fall, the Republicans would scream "NO." That is the only word left in their vocabulary on health care.

The Senate has passed a health care reform bill. It is far from perfect, but it does most of what the House bill did. The House needs to get a commitment from the Senate leadership to fix what can be fixed through reconciliation (get rid of the Cornhusker kickback, modify the tax on high cost health plans, increase subsidies for low-income Americans), and, even more important, get a commitment from the Administration to implement and enforce the bill once adopted. It then needs to pass the Senate bill. Now. This week. Frankly, if I were a member of the House I would worry more about the Administration's committment to implement the bill than the Senate's willingness to fix it. But if the President thinks that the Republicans are willing to reach a useful compromise on health care, it is time to invoke the 25th Amendment.

Maybe its just me, but I was a bit disappointed by the spin from Congressional Republican leaders on the message of Scott Brown's victory, which they said was all about killing health care reform.

No doubt, Bay State voters told Washington that they are fed up with exploding government spending, deficits and debt under the Democrats, and they certainly don't want a government takeover of one-sixth of the economy. But people are also yearning for real solutions to grow the economy and reduce unemployment.

Scott Brown did pledge to oppose ObamaCare, but he also vigorously campaigned on a pro-growth message, as did Republican Bob McDonnell in winning the VA gubernatorial seat. Brown's, in particular, was an unabashed JFK-Reagan-Kemp supply-side message of creating new jobs and new salaries by cutting tax rates for everyone-- rich and poor alike. I suppose "just saying no" to the Democrats' agenda is enough of a message to pick up a couple dozen House seats and a handful of Senate seats.

But to win back control of the House and the Senate, Republicans will need to offer an optimistic and compelling jobs and growth message backed up by specific policy solutions. I didn't hear any of that from Republicans yesterday.

Do the Democrats get the message of Massachusetts? This is a little like asking Caeser if the 27th cut hurt. There has not been one blow to the Democrats' conceit that the nation endorsed their deliberately hidden agenda in November 2008. There have been repeated, insistent reminders from the public….. like an American shouting at a French waiter with increasingly louder and more clearly enunciated English.

Reid and Pelosi and Obama might have watched the ads Obama used to win the election—promises he would not tax your insurance coverage the way McCain would. Or watched the debate where Obama promised he would not spend an additional dollar that was not matched by spending restraint elsewhere. Or that he would never, never tax anyone earning less than $250,000. This was a repudiation of tax and spend….in the campaign.

But once in power Reid, Pelosi and Obama (following dutifully, never leading) pulled a bait and switch and unveiled their spending sprees and tax plans.

Hint number one that Americans and particularly independents were upset at being lied to in the campaign was the April 15 Tea Party rallies. Hint number two was the repeat performance on July 4. Hint number three was the August revolt where Republican congressmen received standing ovations from 1000 person town hall meetings when they promised to oppose Obama/Reid/Pelosi’s plans to tax health care and energy. Hint number four was the 1000 person town hall meetings where Democrats were lambasted for repeating the Democrat talking points of the wonders of higher taxes on energy and health care. Hint number five, polls showing support for the Left's positions on energy, health care, bank bailouts, and stimulus spending collapsing. Hint number six was Obama’s personal support collapsing. Hint number seven was the polling showing Americans planned to vote Republican for congress—a reversal in less than a year. Hint eight was Virginia. Hint nine New Jersey. Hint ten, increasing Democrat retirements. Hint eleven, a safe Democrat congressman switching parties to the minority. A doctor. Hint twelve.....Massachusetts.

Obama’s handlers are telling the press they will now run as populists against the banks, auto companies and insurance companies they have been shoveling subsidies to for the past year. Yes. That is credible. Obama, stern critic of the folks he has been throwing our tax dollars at for a year. The Democrats who have their legislation written in secret white House meetings by labor union lobbyists will call for a change in Washington’s culture. Who will lead this campaign---senators Nelson and Landrieu? Non-registered lobbyist Andrew Stern? Organized perhaps by the incompetents in ACORN who despite millions in federal funds couldn’t even steal an election in Boston?

The Massachusetts results drove home the dangers of being perceived as being on the side of the Wall Street banks instead of the rest of the country.

The public is rightly infuriated about policies that have left Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and the rest better off than ever, while leaving the rest of the country saddled with double-digit unemployment and 2 million foreclosures a year. No one believes that the Obama's administration's claim that there were no alternative economic routes. The bank tax was an effort to get on the right side of public sentiment. it was obviously too little and too late to have any impact on the Massachusetts vote.

The current plan for restricting trading by large banks is another effort in the same direction. Whether or not it works politically will depend on whether or not it actually changes the way Wall Street does business. Obviously symbolic measures are easier than ones that actually inflict pain on the hugely powerful financial sector, but symbolic gestures are not going to be sufficient. In the days of the Internet and bloggers, there are enough independent sources of information, that it will be impossible to get away with claiming that Wall Street has been fixed if it is not true.

If the Goldman Sachs Wall Street crew is still walking away with record profits and record bonuses, then people will know it. That means that the political success of the new restrictions on banking will depend on the extent to which they actually transform the industry. Since they have not been spelled out yet, there is no way of knowing the answer. Of course there is one obvious took for transforming the industry: the financial speculation tax proposed by Representative DeFazio and Senator Harkin.

The election in Massachusetts makes this look like a much more promising measure. It could raise close to $100 billion a year by taxing Wall Street speculation which can directly be used to support job creation and rebuilding the infrastructure. If President Obama were to embrace this tax it would be very clear which side he was on.

Frederick M (guest)
MD:

DIE TRYING!
OK, before we all pretend like the sky has fallen and ask if "they get it", it would be prudent to remember that before MASS. spoke----64 million of us spoke too and we all don't live in MASS. ----- where they have a statewide health care system. WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF US, OUR VOTES DON'T COUNT ANYMORE? Fixing health care costs in America is part of the solution as many small business that fuel this economy would rather outsource the jobs to avoid the soaring coverage costs. How do you create jobs with ignoring such a significant deterrent? Is anyone looking at the broader picture or is it just another swing for fun?
To lead is to stand for what you believe in instead of swimming with any political current otherwise you come off as a weak leader.
Dems need to stand their ground or else they will pay the price with nothing tangible for it. The swing voters are just enjoying their swing, to swing with them is what Cheney calls "DITHERING"!

Chris Sells (guest)
AL:

After comments by the President to ABC, I have to say no. His comment on the voter anger that got him elected is the same anger that got Scott Brown elected. Really? If voter anger is the same, then one must logically assume voters would vote in the same manner...for hope and change, to further push along the Congress, Administrations agenda and support those policies. However, in one of the most Democratic of states that voter anger supported the absolute opposite...no KSM trial, stop healthcare, terrorist do not get rights, no cap and trade etc. If the President sees this wave of anger as the same anger, he not only does not get it...he does not care. Remember this comment..."I am President now...I Won!"

James Cena (guest)
NJ:

Given the Progressive, Liberal, Democratic, Limited conceptual framework, to think outside of the Ideological box. I doubt seriously they will change course and move to the middle. They will simply give the American people, lip service, yet continue their agenda, full steam ahead, in stealth mode. The big question here is, who in the democratic party will be willing to walk the plank for this Administration?

Larry Garnett (guest)
MD:

Based on the response to Tuesday's election, the White House and many Democrats in Congress definitely do not "get it". I'm guessing there are a good number of Republicans who are already making "the wrong assumptions" as well.
In the remaining few days until the State of the Union address the WH staff should start laying the groundwork so that President Obama can use that speech to launch a 60-day 50-state "I'm going to shut-up and listen tour" (with Hawaii being neither the first or last stop). He should call to put ALL legislation on hold and encourage the entire Congress to return to their states and conduct similar state-wide tours. And these should not be sterilized, staff-selected, nothing but supporters meetings either.
And while they are all being driven around in their tour buses, limos, or pick-up trucks they should take out a copy of the U.S. Constitution and read it very carefully (it's also available as a free mp3 download for those who need a "staff" member to read to them anything that looks "legal").

Alex Guggenheim (guest)
VA:

1st, Obama campaigning and Obama administrating with the Democrats in control just are not the same thing. I keep hearing how Obama ran such a "smart" campaign, so why can't he govern smartly? Does that really need to be answered? Over and over again people pointed out the impossibility of the Obama/Dem agenda without severe financial pain to an already over-stressed economy. But people were convinced that Bush and the GOP alone had made such a horrific mess (now they see just how rapidly it can get 5x worse) of things that they were willing to listen to any promise from a fresh face. But fresh faces and campaign promises don't make for effective or remedial public policy.
2nd Dems still won't acknowledge their arrogance toward the "tea party" group and still, to this day, the Dem controlled media allows the vulgar term, "teabagger" without one liberal media person or Dem calling attention to its inappropriateness. Ya' think maybe antagonism from the MsM isn't helping? Ya' think preoccupation with Fox News, Limbaugh and not policy and voter's voices isn't helping? And the reaching across the isle Obama promised? When did he do this? Really? When? The arrogance remains pervasive with Dems but a few are waking up.

Alex Guggenheim (guest)
VA:

Timothy Stoltzfus Jost Law Professor at the Washington and Lee University :
" If Congressional Democrats went to the Republicans crawling on their knees today and said we would like to pass the bill the House Republicans offered in the fall, the Republicans would scream "NO." That is the only word left in their vocabulary on health care."
______________________
I see you have left out words such as "tort reform" and "removing state boundaries and allowing providers to compete in every state", words that the GOP has offered but apparently being misleading about the GOP response and reducing it to just "no" and nothing else is sufficient for you. Maybe you need to look in the mirror and discover the kind of attitude that was just rejected by Massachusetts. While you don't have to agree with the GOP, people (that includes independents) are tired of liberals and Dems wrongly characterizing the positions of those with whom they disagree in order to make an argument. You, Professor, are part of the Democrat problem and the problem as a whole when you won't even fair portray the position of your opponent. And you wonder how Scott Brown got elected? Keep it up and the GOP will send you a bouquet of roses, daily.

Tim Gorman (guest)
KS:

Mr. Baker, it is unbelievable to me that a co-director of an economic resarch group just doesn't get it. A financial speculation tax won't be paid by the banks. That tax will be passed on to us, the people. Taxing is *always* a disincentive to economic growth -- ALWAYS. You simply cannot use taxes as an incentive to do anything! What actually needs to be accomplished is systemic change coupled with transparency so the people understand what the financial entity they are involved with is doing with their money. Then let the people decide what to do with their money and where to put it. Require the banks to publish a simple pie chart every year laying out the risk associated with each section of their capital portfolio. Consumers can then use this to determine how much risk they want their bank to be involved in. Regulators can then be tasked with analyzing if the charts are reliable and, if not, they can *fine* banks that are being misleading. Simple concept - STOP USING TAXES TO IMPLEMENT POLICY!!!!!!

Michael Evans (guest)
MA:

Dean Baker doesn't get it. As a Massachusetts voter I can tell you that being on the right/wrong side of bailing out wall street had very little to do with Brown's sucess. Blaming the "fat cats" (bankers this tim) is the typical canard when the voters say enough of the tax and spend governance (right now we are in the spend phase-just waiting for the taxes). Exit polling clearly showed that Obamacare was the most critical issue. You can blame wall street all you want, but the fact is that the continual piling on of grandiose government schemes with their resultant trillions of debt and taxes buried Coakley. Was it just one thing ? (The bailouts?) I don't think so, but clearly after the bailouts, the failed stimulus and the propsect of additional budget busting health care legislation (not to mention the insane cap and trade legislation)and the people said enough. All this occurring as the economy tanked. Whether or not the bankers at Goldman Sachs got ridiculous bonuses this year was really inconsequential in the election. I don't think it was mentioned by Brown at all.

Lorenzo Davenport (guest)
GA:

First, President Obama and Speaker Pelosi should read Walter Mead's column in this blog and then read it again. In Obama's interview with George Stephanofolus yesterday, the President said essentially that voters just don't understand what really is in the healthcare reform bill, and if they did they would be for it. He will just have to "repeat himself" more often so the content of the bill will sink in to the average American's simple brain. What arrogance! First of all get it out in the open and from behind closed doors. Once people see how really terrible it is, even this administration will finally hear the shouts of the people just like in Massachusets.

Matt Caci (guest)
MA:

Scott Brown won Massachusetts against a complacent candidate that didn't bother to campaign because she thought she had it in the bag. Coakley gave off an air of entitlement and couldn't be bothered to meet with real people and shake a few hands. When voters see this they flock to the other candidate regardless of political party. This is what happened in MA. Those who oppose healthcare were already on the Brown side to start. Those who switched from an Obama vote in November to a Brown vote last Tuesday did so due to lack of a viable candidate on the left. This election was not about rejecting Obamacare or the Democratic agenda but rejecting a candidate who thought she didn't need to campaign to win.

Laura Halvorsen (guest)
FL:

It is clear by Mr. Mead's post as to whether or not the Democrats "get it" that he himself does not "get it". His contemptuous post is demonstrative of the sort of elitist snobbism that has liberals grating on everyone else's nerves. The party that self-describes itself as the champion of equality clearly considers itself not only more equal, but superior to "the ignorant masses". As he said: "the party needs to embrace more 'populist' economic rhetoric". In other words, to keep the "dumbass masses" (his words) voting for them, they need only patronize them by telling them what they want to hear. Accept that the country is center-right, then gin up the centrist, populist, kitchen-table, home spun rhetoric - tell them that you feel their pain and are fighting for them - then proceed full steam ahead a progressive agenda that the vast majority of the country does not subscribe to. And when we complain, just insult us some more and call us "unenlightened" (which, in liberal parlance, is just another word for "stupid"). The Democrats didn't lose in Virgnia, New Jersey and Massachusetts because they didn't "get it". They lost because the "ignorant masses" DO get it. Unbelievable.

R Alan Smith (guest)
CA:

If the majority of Beltway Democrat politicians merely tested the direction and strength of the political winds in order to form (or adjust) their views, I'm certain that they would "get it." However, what is at work here is a worldview not well-calibrated to the unpredictable winds of democracy. The Beltway Democrats now controlling the House and Senate are paternalistic intellectual barons of the ‘60s and “we the people” are their backwards intellectual serfs “in need” of protection and enlightenment. This worldview leads to much head-scratching and finger-pointing by the barons after a string of defeats delivered up by the serfs who refuse to lay down their sticks, stones and pitchforks and to get in line for their next handout. Their worldview makes it extremely difficult to fathom (or recalibrate after) political battlefield rebellions such as they have recently suffered in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts. This is not to say that Republicans are saints or liberators; but having a worldview which, by default, frowns on baronial interventions into the daily lives and pocketbooks of the serfs, they are (for the moment) fortunately (for them) more attuned to the current political ill winds sweeping across the land.

John BonA (guest)
MN:

I think Walter Russell Mead's response was awesome and right on the mark.

Jorge Roques (guest)
PR:

Everyone is overreacting to the Supreme Court ruling. Someone please tell me honestly, in the end, how this differs from lobbying? Lobbyists have a DIRECT connection and influence on Congressmen and Senators. They actually get to spend money to woo (ie bribe) them. Therefore lobbyists are even worse and BOTH republicans AND democrats give lobbyists the time of day. PACs already exist for corporations to contribute money.
Are you really that worried that all these corporate sponsored advertisements are going to persuade you to do something you weren't going to do in the first place? Progressives will vote for their progressive candidates. Right-wingers will vote for their candidates. I seriously doubt Independents can be brainwashed. They seem to be the only ones capable to "give and take" from both sides of the aisle. They seem to be the only ones who understand that when you govern, in a democratic society, you have to curtail to the need of both the majority and the minority. Worried about corporations bashing candidates? What do you think CNN, MSNBC, and FOX do when their "journalists" bash other candidates and give their points of view? That's influence extended to the masses and yet NO-ONE dares to limit the media.

Jorge Roques (guest)
PR:

To continue where I left off, what really seems to be the issue is freedom of speech, fairness and equal rights. We as individuals get to donate and talk about candidates because their decisions affect all of us directly. We are taxed and told what things can and cannot be done. Therefore it is my right, whether I'm rich or poor to contribute and try to have a candidate be elected to represent MY needs. How different is this from businesses? They have taxes and regulations to follow as well. Candidates decisions directly affect those businesses as well as their employees, the local economies where those businesses operate, etc, and if we're talking about public corporations, then thousands and even millions of shareholders are affected too. I don't own a business, but out of fairness aren't they allowed to contribute to get someone elected that represents their needs? The constitution is supposed to protect various rights including some of the bad that comes with those rights. Many of you think that the average voter is dumb and cannot make a decision for themselves that is based on their needs. And if you don't care what others think because of opposing views, then you don't deserve to live in the UNITED States of America.

Larry Disney (guest)
IA:

Oh yeah, this is going to be horrible. Corporations will have the same power as unions, trade associations able to respond to "Progressive" non profits like the ones funded by Soros and the targets of the left will be able to fight back.
Why is it that the self proclaimed "Good Government" types are always looking for ways to restrict the ability of American's to influence their own government and protect the ever growing government from anyone who would dare to challenge it?

Lee (MMBJack) McCarty (guest)
NV:

Do they get it? This reminds me of President Clinton asking "it depends on what IS IS"? What I get (as representing the loyal opposition to the RWCP and the GOP) is that Health Care Reform that further softens and compromises any final bill is NOT "getting it". I have lately suggested near term "Reconciliation" and then really go for the real answer. A Single Payer Health Care System as a theme and reality with real impact to resolve this truly impossible - of satisfying the GOP and their Insurance and drug company backers. It remains to be seen whether Senator Brown belongs to one or the other so I expect a finger in the wind will decide that for him and his challenge is to have his foot in both mud puddles. Even if not successful the Democratic Congress and President Obama especially must - by doing or dieing with the right answer - actually do better by far by holding to a real cause without compromise. This means a State of the Union address with a vision of real fundamental change to counter the Supreme Court decision today which is the wrong direction for this to happen. Working peoples interests in having a real opportunity to compete as a HEALTHY individual or family head in a "free enterprise" democracy once again is IT!!

E A Shep (guest)
FL:

OK: Now this is getting absurd!!
Can some please tell me which parts of the 1st amendment applies to people and which parts apply to legal entities. For those in favor of this court decision, I ask you: can you use your same logic to justify that a legal entity also has the right to express it's religion.
Let's say that a legal entity decides to express the Mormon religion and as such requires all it's workers to read the book of Mormon and pay tithing to the Church. (I happen to be Mormon) Is this action also protected.. Hello...
Why not also give legal entities the right to vote?
Is there any restrictions on foreign corporations, participating in political expression?
Have you read the preamble? Do the "Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" now need to be amended to read the "blessings of liberty to legal entities, ourselves and our posterity?
The Bottom line here is that the voice and will of "the people" has been diluted over the years. Our vote is not worth too much when the access and influence to winner is only given to the PACs, 457s, lobbyist, corporations and non-profits.

jay chenn (guest)
TX:

It's a game. All of it. Each side tries to cut off the other's air supply while conveniently ignoring the abuses within their own party. Soft money, PAC money, direct donations, federal dollars, blah, blah, blah. No matter how you cut it both sides are addicted to the dole and neither is clean.

Mark Cleveland (guest)
NM:

What on earth does Walter Russell Mead's voluminous response contribute to today's discussion of the outrage committed by the SCOTUS? Conservatives, you hypocrisy about "activist" courts has been apparent before, but is laid bare naked before you now. This is an utter perversion of the clear meaning of the Constitution and stare decisis. This country is in deep, deep trouble.

Art Harman (guest)
VA:

No, THEY DON'T GET IT! Proof? Just after the Supreme Court reads and obeys the Constitution on the First Amendment speech case; what to "they" do? Sen. Schumer calls for hearings to presumably pass another First-Amendment-violating law to undo the Supreme Court and re-strangle free speech. Unbelievable! Looks like they will keep fighting all of America to strip our rights and Socialize our country until the new GOP majority, veto-proof Congress is sworn in in 2011!

Matt Soliday (guest)
OH:

I really hope Mr. O ramps up the attacks on big business demonizing the very companies we need to prosper. People will choose business over the government and this will be the political nail in the coffin for Democrats.

Donald Johnson, blogger, www.businessword.com (guest)
CO:

In Colorado, Democrat appointed Sen. Bennet is back tracking on his promise to vote for the public option even if it would cost him his job. But he's so boxed himself into the Obama corner of the left that no one will believe him. He's an Obama Dem. Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, an Obama Democrat, is disowning Gov. Bill Ritter and running to the center as fast as he can. But he's trying to have it both ways, warning against tax increases during a recession that he thinks is over and then approving new tax increases that Ritter is calling "fees." Hick has raised taxes too many times. Hick may get away with it because he is even more charming than Scott Brown. He has more credibility as a businessman than Scott McInnis. Yet, McInnis long ago anticipated voters' interest in "jobs, jobs, and jobs." He campaigns among Repubs, but he talks about his platform, not the GOP's. His Platform for Prosperity (P4P) is a pretty good appeal to both Tea Party and independent voters. He's promising no tax increases and he's focusing on less spending and balancing the budget. McInnis is going negative real early on Hick, which may alienate independents. The real questions: Do Tea Party and Daily Kos folks get it? Do they want to win elections?

Jez Stratton (guest)
CA:

Do Democrats get it? Some seem to but the President is entirely wrong when he claims to have been elected on the same wave of anger that carried Scott Brown into office. The anger is toward Obama and his overreach - simple as that!
As to Timothy Stoltzfus Jost talking about the 25th Amendment he should take a chill pill and simply be quiet as he clearly doesn't get it and apparently never will.

Mark hannawa (guest)
NC:

Mr. Mead and Mr. Jost, lets not talk about the administration not getting it, lets talk about you not getting it! You guys are supposed to be educated people, yet you continue to go down the path of progressive ideology with your untraditional American thinking. What don't you get about the American people's beliefs that compels you to stand against us with your far left rhetoric. I strongly believe America made a grave mistake in allowing socialist, progressive teaching to flourish in our educational system uncheck for decades. What you see today is a revolt that should have taken place decades ago to weed out anti-American thinkers like yourselves. Your jobs were to educate the youths of this great society to uphold the traditions, and values of this country rather then impose you own ideological view of what this country should become. You place yourselves on elitist pedestals looking down on us simple folk, while dictating as to how we should live our lives. Only God empowers man to think, and achieve for himself. We don't need self imposed prophets like yourselves to tell us how to live our lives, and to guide our moral compass. Our moral compass is just fine being the most giving nation, and leading with freedom for all men.

Joe Kerbasan (guest)
NC:

Neither side gets it, yet. Most Americans just want to be left alone to make decisions for themselves in a system that doesn't seem rigged. Americans DONT WANT another group of people who think they're smarter than the rest of us and should decide how we live. Republicans didn't get it in 2008, and Democrats don't get it now. We ARE NOT looking for a different group of really smart people to save us. All we want is for government to get out of the way and give us a chance to save ourselves.
Most people see Democrats Barney Frank and Chris Dodd as being just _below_ Wall Street bankers. When the Obama administration keeps giving Fannie, Freddie, and GM our money, attacking Wall Street just doesn't ring true. Voters are mad at ALL OF YOU, bankers and politicians are in the same boat.
2010 will be the year of people who are not from Washington, regardless of party. 2012 will be the same, and probably 2014. This will continue until someone gets the real message. We're not looking for another group of too smart people to save us. Just set up a system that gives us a shot instead of gets in the way, and the people of the US will do the rest.

Toni Mack (guest)
TX:

Plus, this decision makes clear where liberals stand on civil liberties. According to them, "The US has what's called a Bill of Rights. But we think the Founders didn't really mean for everyone to have liberty -- only those that we on the Supreme Court say you can have. We don't want speech to be truly free anymore than we wanted everyone to have the right to keep and bear arms." Now I want to see right-to-work laws re-tested against the right to peaceably assemble.

Toni Mack (guest)
TX:

Frankly, I'm tired of the obsession by POLITICO and everyone else with whether the Dems get it. I want to know what the hitherto lockstep GOP makes of Brown's win. When Republicans were in power, they were every bit as arrogant and every bit as devoted to earmarks and to whatever donors would give them money. Are DC Republicans going to realize that they, too, have to start listening to everyone, and start acting like the common man they say they respect has a brain? I used to get fawning, condescending surveys from Dems with questions like "Do you believe in a fair wage?" When I became conservative, I got just as insulting surveys from the GOP ("Do you believe fair taxes promote a healthy economy?") until they learned I wasn't going to donate. I want to know what the recently spurned and still unpopular and impoverished Party of Lincoln has learned.

Toni Mack (guest)
TX:

No, it's a large revolution. Now the big-money donors, corporations and unions, can use the plethora of media and message delivery systems developed in the last two decades. That's like two centuries in digital years. More, they can put their deep pockets to work to develop still more message delivery systems -- if they're sincere about trying to reach the average voter without condescending to his or her values and intelligence. That's a huge challenge to both parties. And in a land where creativity still has pretty free rein. Whoopee! What a spectacle for political junkies.

Phil Southern (guest)
AL:

Do Democrats get it?
Baker and Jost don't to name a couple. They and other Progressive zealots continue to lay all the blame at the feet of others. There is plenty to go around of course, but the key concept behind the shift in the winds is "overreaching". Middle-class America is tired of hearing about how bad it is for someone to make big money. I want to make big money, and the illusion that I can will keep me working hard. What's done is done as far as the bail-outs, TARP, and Union-approved Health Care Reform. The problem that folks like Mr. Baker and Mr. Jost have, is that lots of voters have taken a common-sense view of those issues......we can interpret the few facts we have just fine thank you. More taxes and regulations seem to be the facts.
On the other hand, I'm not sure my Republicans "get it" either. We shouldn't be gloating of a few electoral successes. I agree with Mr. Conda, we should be focusing less on spinning and more on meaningful policy. Meaningful can include lots of things. Like it or not, this health care debate will result in some sort of legislation. I'm tired of hearing about tort-reform, when we all know that a Congress help-us-God full of lawyers will never really address it.

Alex Guggenheim (guest)
VA:

"Can you hear us now"? Campaigning involves speaking, governing involves listening. Obama is claimed to be, by some, a master of oration and his campaign, with all its speeches, carried many Dems into office and into power. However, now that the time for speeches has ended and the time for listening began a year ago with no effort to acknowledge the voices of voters, rather Obama and the Democrats choosing to mock, minimize and ignore voices that didn't cheer what he and they wanted to hear, the voters spoke in Massachusetts and they will speak again soon all across the country. Obama and the Dems through and with Robert Gibbs might have enjoyed their smirking moments of denying the validity of the "tea party" or GOP and conservative voices raising concerns over a spiraling debt, worsening employment, trying terrorists in civilian courts, and the disastrous Obamacare muddied with serial corruption. He might have pretended with glee that the rallies were non-events and focused only on voices that enabled them to portray any opposition as hostile (white) people. Hopefully they enjoyed their cake because there is no second serving. So with that said...can you hear us now? Can you hear us now? Time will tell.

Mark hannawa (guest)
NC:

Mr. Mead and Mr. Jost, lets not talk about the administration not getting it, lets talk about you not getting it! You guys are supposed to be educated people, yet you continue to go down the path of progressive ideology with your untraditional American thinking. What don't you get about the American people's beliefs that compels you to stand against us with your far left rhetoric. I strongly believe America made a grave mistake in allowing socialist, progressive teaching to flourish in our educational system uncheck for decades. What you see today is a revolt that should have taken place decades ago to weed out anti-American thinkers like yourselves. Your jobs were to educate the youths of this great society to uphold the traditions, and values of this country rather then impose you own ideological view of what this country should become. You place yourselves on elitist pedestals looking down on us simple folk, while dictating as to how we should live our lives. Only God empowers man to think, and achieve for himself. We don't need self imposed prophets like yourselves to tell us how to live our lives, and to guide our moral compass. Our moral compass is just fine being the most giving nation, and leading with freedom for all men.

George Stiller (guest)
FL:

We have a government system where money and corporate influence can buy control of government. By balancing the power structure the way the Constitution calls for, a few members of the Senate, the branch with the longest terms in government, have the power to overrule the votes of both the President and other 90% of Congress. The fact that the executive branch is made up of cabinet members of the business elite is further evidence that a hidden corporate oligarchy exists within our government. This corporate oligarchy controls government via political campaign contributions to both parties simultaneously. Thus, special interest, corporate and high-paid corporate-influenced employees have more say in our government than does the general voting public.
Just look at Obama's campaign, he took in the largest amount of political campaign contributions ever from the general public, yet his actions with both the bank and corporate bailouts, and back-room health care reform deals, benefitted the corporation more than the electorate. George W. Bush was no different, he sold out to the banks, corporations and the fundamentalist conservative right.
Unfortunately, a corporate oligarchy appears to be a basic tenet of government.

Kailey James (guest)
DC:

My interpretation of this is that my $200 will be going against the hundreds of millions of available funds that the corporations can dole out. How does the court justify such an obvious slant against the people?

mark hannawa (guest)
NC:

It shouldn't be a right or left issue in America, rather, It should be a give and take issue. If you want an agenda, we want an agenda simple as that. 1) You want healthcare reform, we want energy independence. 2) You want same sex marriage adopted, we want strong anti-abortion laws. 3) You want to regulate banks, we want to regulate government. 4) You want immigration reform, we want the manufacturing sector revitalized and limited NAFTA policies. 5) You want education reform, we want to control the curriculum. 6) You want more entitlements, we want to regulate unions, and their size. 7) You want finance reform, we want to stop a system that allows unscrupulous investors to hedge against our economic stability. 8) If you want to quit the two wars, then we want to seal off our boarders completely, and build a missile defense system unlike any other that the world has seen. For all the things the left wants, we here on the right want an equivalent alternative. You're not the only ones with needs, everyone has needs.... "IT'S A GIVE AND TAKE WORLD" simply put!

Phil Southern (guest)
AL:

Do Democrats get it?
Baker and Jost don't to name a couple. They and other Progressive zealots continue to lay all the blame at the feet of others. There is plenty to go around of course, but the key concept behind the shift in the winds is "overreaching". Middle-class America is tired of hearing about how bad it is for someone to make big money. I want to make big money, and the illusion that I can will keep me working hard. What's done is done as far as the bail-outs, TARP, and Union-approved Health Care Reform. The problem that folks like Mr. Baker and Mr. Jost have, is that lots of voters have taken a common-sense view of those issues......we can interpret the few facts we have just fine thank you. More taxes and regulations seem to be the facts.
On the other hand, I'm not sure my Republicans "get it" either. We shouldn't be gloating over a few electoral successes. I agree with Mr. Conda, we should be focusing less on spinning and more on meaningful policy. Meaningful can include lots of things. Like it or not, this health care debate will result in some sort of legislation. I'm tired of hearing about tort-reform, when we all know that a Congress help-us-God full of lawyers will never really address it. CONSENSUS build.

Lee (MMBJack) McCarty (guest)
NV:

Wow! Today is a menu very complicated as well as very urgently important. Some quick quotes I see as relevant to the interests of those urging positive social and political changes for the good of ALL Americans: Anna Burger on campaign finance - just plain good on target commentary. Amitai Etzioni also excellent summary. Bradley Blakeman: "this ruling will have a 'tremendous' impact on the 2010 elections". I guess so, and I am delighted to agree for once with Bradley though with a different meaning than his intention no doubt. Treating Corporations like individual Americans has gone too far, and free speech first amendment is turned upside down against individual Americans.The best of the best is Martin Frost who was against McCain Feingold for the reasons leading to this Supreme Court decision slipped in before President Obama has a chance to name another Justice. It is bad for freedom of speech because it distorts the sacred rights guaranteed by our founders to the advantage of Big Corporate Money. Mr. Frost says: "Corporations may spend soft money against candidates and political parties are still prohibited from raising soft money to counteract these attacks" is clarity on this complicated issue. An anti-freedoms decision!!!!

Phil Gonzalez (guest)
TX:

No, President Obama is not slowly getting it and before we talk about the irony in the Republicans benefiting from the arrogance of the Democrats, it's President Obama and the Democrats who are solely responsible for the way the people feels. As for penance toward big government, the Republicans never attempted to take over the businesses, banks, and health care. You can not compared the motives behind helping out big businesses with the Republicans and the Democrats. The motives behind the Democrats includes doing away with the capitalist system and replacing it with a socialist one. President Obama said he told the Senate not to rush forward until Brown is in the Senate. The blame game is never ending with this President. President Obama is the one who put a rush on the health care bill for his State of the Union address. Neither does President Obama or Pelosi get it. They think it's the people who didn't understand their message and they have do better in helping the people to understand. How do you help the people understand, living in a socialist society would be better for them, instead of the America they grew up in. The people said they didn't like the direction this country was headed and it was due to their message.

Donald Moore (guest)
NE:

In my opinion, a contributor should be allowed to give as much as they want to as long as it is a) reported and b) NOT tax deductible.
We should protect ALL freedom of speech by this ruling -- even at the risk of high dollar campaign "bribes." If not, we begin a slippery slope of deciding who can make contributions and how much they can be. I would prefer that these contributions be publicly reported than transacted with suitcases in a hotel room which will happen if contributions are limited. And I would rather have a politician's vote bought "honestly" by campaign contributions instead of taxpayer dollars to buy the votes of politicians like Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu and others.

Randy Hensley (guest)
AZ:

The special interests have now completed their take over of our democracy. Under the guise of free speech, the corporate interests will inundate our media with ads that will skew the views of a large segment of the American population.
Our Supreme court justices have finalized the end of the middle class american vote and ensured that corporations and for profit companies will dictate the political direction of our country.
Idealists such as President Obama will not be able to compete with the the mis-information and fear inspiring rhetoric of the goliaths. The $20.00 or $100.00 checks sent in by the majority of Americans will be a drop in the bucket compared to the millions that will be spent to undermine the most modest of proposed restraints that were taken away during the Reagan administration and in fact are the reason for our current fiscal crisis.
This will not be sustainable. The only hope now, is that the greedy corporations will continue their rape and pillage, until middle class America won't be able to afford a radio or television and therefore won't be lambasted with the ridiculous lies that they sponsor and their corporate prostitutes ie; beck, limbaugh, etc. are spewing and will continue to spew.

Toni Mack (guest)
TX:

Non-ideologues of all parties need not just an optimistic, non-condescending message. They need to do something nobody's done since Reagan: explain your principles in simple, direct terms. Then, when you're in office, do exactly what you said you'd do. Unlike Gingrich and Obama, who swiftly overreached.

warner mobley (guest)
TX:

Daschle was thrown out of office by the people in his state. Why is he still in DC? The dems reward faithful service by continuing to employ those who were voted out of office. What the public needs are term limits and laws to keep professional parasite politicians out of DC.

warner mobley (guest)
TX:

Daschle is still in DC. Frost is still in DC. Once a dem get to DC he never leaves. The dems supporting Obama know that even when they are voted out of office they will never leave DC because the dems will reward them for faithful service by giving them jobs in DC. The public needs term limits and more restrictive laws to keep the lifetime politicians out of DC.

Jan Dorgan (guest)
OH:

Perhaps conservatives do have free speech after all. Thank you Supreme Court. Chuck-u-Schumer will have it otherwise if allowed, we just can't allow a level playing field for all. The left has had it all on their side for so long and with Obama they thought the end of conservatisim was done. We can expect the media to Sarah Palin Scott Brown, but the below the belt, sleezy tactics are not working any more. The American people have seen what the radical left, (which is really all of them) is all about and they don't like it.

sherman crockett,jr. (guest)
GA:

This SCOTUS decision is, short and simple, a dream come true for conservative Republicans as it represents a direct attack on the success realized by POTUS Obama's record-breaking fund raising during the 2008 campaign. If the big corps. can use their financial clout in both local, state and national elections, it will go a long way in electing more conservative, usually Republican, candidates.
Of course POTUS Obama expressed his own concern about this ruling when he said that the ruling in effect was a victory for corporate fat cats and a defeat for the common man.
Of course I realize that this ruling could also benefit those politicos who are favored by corporations which politically lean to the left, but we know that this will benefit Wall Street and its cronies much more than it will Main Street. When this ruling is coupled with the recent Republican senatorial victory in Massachusetts, one must begin to wonder if South Carolina Senator Jim DeMints's "Waterloo" desire and prediction can be far behind.

Laura Halvorsen (guest)
FL:

Phil Southern said: "Middle-class America is tired of hearing about how bad it is for someone to make big money. I want to make big money, and the illusion that I can will keep me working hard." Absolutely true! However, today's progressives don't want you - or anyone else - to make "big money". They want to be Big Money and they want you to come to them for all your needs. And the only way that's going to happen is by shattering your illusion that working hard will earn you big money. And the way to shatter your illusions is to continuously demonize capitalism, Wall Street, "big business", "the rich" and everything else that enables people to be self-sufficient, flawed as it may be. It's simple: do you want to live in a country where you have an opportunity to grab the brass ring knowing there's a risk of failure? Or do you want to live in a country where the government makes sure everyone, no matter how hard they work, are issued an equal amount of mediocrity pie? Like me, I think you'd take your chances with the brass ring... even if it only ends up being an illusion.

Alan Henderson (guest)
GA:

Mr. Obama's new plan to sock it to the banks was missing one item -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Allowing them to continue is like allowing one bank to control 80% of all deposits.
For those who discuss financial reform, they and the media are doing a disservice to this country by leaving out reform of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
Maybe Mr. Barbash can add Fannie and Freddie as a future topic.
I look forward to the spin that is generated.

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